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A “coalition of international, regional and national publishers associations” has sent a letter to our government threatening retaliation for Bill C-11 with a WTO complaint.

Apparently they dislike several exemptions provided by the bill :

“As currently drafted, however, many provisions of C-11 may allow a broad group of public and private institutions and organizations to copy and distribute works under a vague and intentionally broad educational exception in ways that publishers and authors license, thereby promoting strife and litigation, and potentially violating all three elements of the three-step test.

Similar concerns also relate to the exceptions for non-commercial user generated content, the display exception and the tests and examination exception, the exception relating to publicly available material on the internet, and the inter-library loan exception.”

Bill C-11, a.k.a the Copyright Modernization Act, is now being reviewed in committee.

This committee will review the proposed amendments, clause by clause, and will make adjustments in response to requests by interested parties.

Unfortunately numerous groups have requested major amendments that could complicate matters for consumers and Canadian internet users.

Members of the music industry are not only asking for a levy on mp3 players and serious restrictions to the fair dealing/user generated content clauses. But they are also asking for SOPA and PIPA like measures that include the blocking of foreign web sites and the removal of online content without court oversight.

Other industry groups have also called for the identification of internet users, again without legal oversight, and the introduction of RIAA style prosecutions to Canada with amendments that are so vague as to possibly result in the prosecution of social networking sites like Facebook and search engines like Google.

The Supreme Court of Canada has had previous rulings on fair dealing, the prosecution of internet providers in regards to copyright and the proposed levies on mp3 players. But it appears some members of the music industry don’t care about these rulings.

They also don’t care about the many concerns voiced by the public and associations representing students and librarians, as made apparent by their rhetoric.

In essence they’re willing to allow the public to be subjected to vague and possibly unconstitutional regulations, that will be questioned in law for years, when exemptions for fair dealing and private copying would in no way hinder their industry.

Under the premise of the protection of their industry, they will subject consumers to more copy protection schemes like that of the Sony Rootkit, that have failed and endangered their interests in the past.

There are currently two petitions that may be of interest to those who oppose these amendments :